7 Ways Business Processes Have Changed the Need for Security

Considering how fast every facet of business is changing today, the job for Security teams has become much more complex — and critical. Not only are there more data and endpoints to protect, but there are also new threats and adversaries to detect.

Since speed and continuous release cycles can be a major competitive advantage for businesses, Security professionals need to identify ways of keeping up. In this post, we’ll cover seven important ways business processes are changing and how security can adapt to support the speed of business.

1. Rapid Development Cycles

Speed, or time to market, helps companies stay ahead of competition, but it cannot be at the expense of security. Security also cannot be allowed to slow down the business.

The solution? Security at speed and scale. This requires security to provide continuous visibility of anomalous behavior within the infrastructure and enables business processes, ensuring that vulnerabilities are caught early, configurations are validated, and security works alongside, not against, the business. Installed at the host layer, intrusion detection platforms can bridge this gap quickly and seamlessly.

2. Integrated Processes

It’s more and more common these days for Security and Operations teams to work in a collaborative fashion. This is a shift from the traditional approach where Operations views Security as a gatekeeper versus a collaborative partner. And this workflow process change is a good thing. As operations teams drive efficiencies organization wide, companies are realizing that security must work collaboratively alongside it to keep the business safe and secure. With more applications, data points, and users working together everyday, manual or fragmented security efforts simply can’t keep up with the speed that business requires. By automating critical security procedures like intrusion detection, configuration auditing, and vulnerability scanning, security teams can gain deep visibility, catch issues early on, and collaborate with operations teams to resolve issues as they are identified. This is in stark contrast to bringing in security at the end of the process.

3. Security as a Business Partner

Security is now a board-level discussion, and many security teams are welcomed at the table because of its strategic significance and importance to the company’s overall well being. . Not a week goes by that another disastrous breach makes the news headlines, and every company is worried about whether they’re next. Security leaders are being asked to work as business partners with other teams, ensuring that security is integrated into workflows in order to add value to each process. As we’ve written before, security must become the responsibility of many. While companies still, of course, need security experts with deep domain knowledge, every person needs to become a contributor to the organization’s security.

4. Evolving Security and Operations Roles

To streamline processes and reduce risk across the organization, security and operations roles are evolving to become more integrated. To accomplish this, both teams need to first find common ground in order to work together. Establishing shared goals between the teams is a good start. Sharing tools is next. Additionally, any security pro who has spent their entire career in network security must learn how to secure cloud infrastructure in order to keep up with the business and the operations team. With common goals, a shared language and understanding, and optimized processes, everyone can work as a collaborative team.

5. The Disappearing Perimeter

The days of perimeter-based security are coming to a close. Given the elastic nature of cloud environments, there is no longer a defined area to protect. Adding to the complexity, many organizations today are operating in a hybrid, multi-cloud, or containerized environment. While this drives many efficiencies organization wide, it can pose a problem if security processes aren’t built for cloud, hybrid, multi-cloud, or containerized environments. That’s where platforms such as Threat Stack come in, able to work across complex environments, either as you transition to the cloud or operate in a mixed environment.

6. Shared Security Model

Today, businesses are increasingly reliant on third-party providers for cloud hosting, developing code, and running operations processes. But for security, that often means less control and more risk to the business. But if the third parties you work with operate under a shared security model (companies like Amazon do), both vendors and organizations can take joint measures to ensure end-to-end security. Knowing where your vendors’ responsibilities end and yours begin, you can focus on what you need to do.

7. Sophisticated Attack Models

Attackers today are upping their game, meaning legacy detection techniques don’t work.. Legacy security technologies built to block threats, for example, are no longer effective because there is no absolute way to block threats in a perimeter-less environment. This means that all businesses operating in the cloud need a second and critical layer — detection for when someone does get through (because they will). Intrusion detection platforms can spot when an intruder is inside the system, where they are, and what actions they have taken so that they can be stopped before real damage occurs.

Takeaways

Although today’s business climate is much different than it was just a few years ago, it offers a new paradigm for security. With more opportunities to gain visibility and integrate security organization wide, security can become more effective and widespread to manage organizational risk — all without hindering speed or ability to scale. And this is a great news for security teams and business leaders alike.

As Threat Stack’s Director of Product Marketing, Travis has 17 years of experience in technology and security in both the enterprise and consumer markets working at Symantec, Everbridge, and other SaaS technology businesses. With a focus on building go-to-market strategies that support customer needs, Travis has supported verticals including technology, healthcare, finance, and government, amongst others. Having attended St. Lawrence University for his BA and the Claremont Graduate University for his MBA, Travis is based in southern New Hampshire with his wife and two sons.